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Chimpanzees’ understanding of social leverage

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Call_2018_PONE_ChimpLeverage_CCBY_VoR.pdf (1.186Mb)
Date
12/12/2018
Author
Sánchez-Amaro, Alejandro
Duguid, Shona
Call, Josep
Tomasello , Michael
Keywords
BF Psychology
QH301 Biology
DAS
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Abstract
Social primates can influence others through the control of resources. For instance, dominant male chimpanzees might allow subordinates access to mate with females in exchange for social support. However, little is known about how chimpanzees strategically use a position of leverage to maximize their own benefits. We address this question by presenting dyads of captive chimpanzee (N = 6) with a task resulting in an unequal reward distribution. To gain the higher reward each individual should wait for their partner to act. In addition, one participant had leverage: access to an alternative secure reward. By varying the presence and value of the leverage we tested whether individuals used it strategically (e.g. by waiting longer for partners to act when they had leverage in the form of alternatives). Additionally, non-social controls served to show if chimpanzees understood the social dilemma. We measured the likelihood to choose the leverage and their latencies to act. The final decision made by the chimpanzees did not differ as a function of condition (test versus non-social control) or the value of the leverage, but they did wait longer to act when the leverage was smaller—particularly in test (versus non-social control) trials suggesting that they understood the conflict of interest involved. The chimpanzees thus recognized the existence of social leverage, but did not use it strategically to maximize their rewards.
Citation
Sánchez-Amaro , A , Duguid , S , Call , J & Tomasello , M 2018 , ' Chimpanzees’ understanding of social leverage ' , PLoS One , vol. 13 , no. 12 , e0207868 . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207868
Publication
PLoS One
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207868
ISSN
1932-6203
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2018 Sánchez-Amaro et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/16682

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